You Can't Always Get What You Want

Posted Friday, July 18, 2008, at 12:39 AM

It may seem that I skipped a week in writing movie reviews. In fact, I did not. You can read my most recent review of the movie "Wanted" on the official A Penny in the Well blogsite. But I felt an explanation was in order as to why I did not republish this review on the Marshall Democrat-News website. My intentions for this blog are to promote cinematic arts in Marshall. I fear that the Marshall Cinema may be dying as audience numbers dwindle, even for the most popular of summer blockbusters. I want to keep this blog squarely focused on Marshall cinema and the movies that play here in town. Should Marshall play "Wanted" in the coming weeks, my review will be published on this site.

You see, the purpose of the critic is not to tell the audience what to see and what not to see, but rather our goal is to educate the film going public on how to watch movies. Like so many other art forms, appreciation comes not just through the act of observing but in engaging your mind in what you are seeing. Whether I like a movie is really neither here nor there. It is just my opinion, and no matter how righteous I may sound in the way I'm saying it, my opinion is no more valid than anyone else's. The point is to inspire the same passion for film that I have into the Marshall community so we can continue to enjoy this most American of art forms.

Now, when I looked at the Marshall movie schedule for last weekend and discovered that the new Eddie Murphy family film "Meet Dave" was the new release that had been scheduled, I couldn't help but react as any filmgoer might toward any given movie. "I don't want to see that," was my thought. Normally, I would see it anyway, for two reasons. 1) You have to take the good with the bad when you are trying to help inform the public. 2) You can't judge a book by its cover. You never know. It could have surprised me. But I won't be finding out because I am not about to spend $7.75 to prolong Eddie Murphy's career of making stupid movies.

Part of being a proactive movie watcher, is letting the local exhibitor know what you do and don't want to see. There were two other major release movies that opened last week to much better opinion, both from critics and audiences. Yes, "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" is yet another dark comic book superhero adaptation in a summer already saturated with them. And "Journey to the Center of the Earth" was designed to be screened in theaters outfitted with 3-D projection systems, however it did play on many 2-D screens across the country. And perhaps, considering the great job B&B has done providing the Marshall Cinema with a wide range of new release movies for these summer months, neither of those movies were suited to fit in with what was already screening and what would be coming in the next few weeks. But I just couldn't bring myself to watch another movie I had no interest in seeing, since there were so many other movies out there I did want to see.

I apologize if I let anyone down by not providing an opinion on what is currently playing here in Marshall. And I promise not to stray from home too often. But when you consume movies like I do, sometimes you just have to go for what you want rather than what you get.

A review of the new Batman movie "The Dark Knight", currently playing at the Marshall Cinema, will be posted soon.

Andrew is a professionally trained actor and stage director. He was a reporter for the daily newspaper The Marshall Democrat News. He has been critiquing film since Mr. Lucas released the first of his "Star Wars" prequels in 1999. His reviews can also be seen at his blog site.